Myagdi. The Maldhunga-Beni road linking Myagdi and Mustang with the national highway has been upgraded.

The Maldhunga-Beni road section has been widened by 11 meters in two lanes under the Kaligandaki Corridor (Beni-Jomsom-Korala) road, a national pride project linking China and India.

Apex-Khadka-Krishna JV had signed a contract for Rs 528.6 million in April 2020 to blacktop the 13-km road from Maldhunga of Kushma municipality-1 to Beni of Myagdi district via wards 8, 7, 4 and 3 of Jaljala rural municipality.

Project Chief Tejaswi Sharma said that blacktopping and slope works have been completed in all but 960 meters of the road. “The works of painting and installing safety infrastructure are going on on the road which has been completed and blacktopped”, he said, adding that 760 meters of the road in Waribeni, 100 meters each in Kerabari and Pharse landslide have been removed from the contract. ”

Sharma said that the road expansion in the middle of the settlement in Waribeni had to be removed from the contract due to the negligence of the house owners and landslides in Farse and Kerabari. It was targeted to be completed by 2079 BS.

The main contractor had come to the project a year ago to complete the project which was stalled by the sub-contractor Omkareshwar citing the coronavirus pandemic, floods and shortage of river-based construction materials.

Before this, 3 kilometres of blacktopped along the Maldhunga-Farse road section was blacktopped by 300 metres and 2 kilometres by 200 metres of slope was carried out last year. Engineer of the construction company, Jeevan Chaudhary, said that the technical team has completed the blacktopping of the 6-kilometer 500-meter road along the Lasti-Beni road that began in the third week of November.

Local residents of Myagdi, Mustang and Jaljala rural municipality of Parbat along with tourists and pilgrims pass through this road. The Maldhunga-Beni road which was opened in 2052 BS under the ‘Food for Work’ programme was blacktopped one-way in 2068 BS. This narrow road had become dilapidated in recent time due to the increase in the number of vehicles after the road network of Mustang and Korlana was connected.

Transport entrepreneur Buddhi Pun said the travel time of the Maldhunga-Beni road section has been reduced to 15 to 20 minutes after the upgradation of the road section. “For the last five years, we have been travelling via Beni to Maldhunga via Ratnechaur Baglung”, he said, adding, “The problem of travelling on a circuitous road has been removed and the travel time has also been shortened.” ”

Baburam Karki, a resident of Milanchowk in Jaljala rural municipality-7, said that the blacktopping of the road has put an end to the risky and difficult journey in the dusty and muddy road.